November 2015 Issue

COVER STORY

For mergers and acquisitions (M&A) professionals, 2015 has been a bumper year. The first half of the year in particular was punctuated by a series of high profile mega deals concluded across a number of sectors, most notably in communications...

FEATURES

Tax inversion deals have made considerable waves over the course of the last 18 months or so. Inversions have been a perfectly legal and normal corporate transaction for some time; however, the process has been attacked by claims that it is both...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become one of the standard business practices of our time. For companies committed to CSR it means kudos and an enhanced overall reputation – a powerful statement of what they stand for in an often...

‘Wellness at work is the key to higher productivity’ states the universal corporate mantra. In the US, this belief is certainly part of the workplace landscape, if the prevalence of corporate wellness programmes is anything to go by...

Since its introduction as a corporate strategy, outsourcing has been a divisive subject. For those companies engaged in outsourcing, the benefits are plentiful. It allows firms to increase efficiency, cut costs, speed up product development and focus...

If one were asked to suggest an apt word to describe the state in which the Chinese economy has found itself over the past few months, the terms slump, disarray or even meltdown could very well be contenders. Following the...

Corporate fraud – be it insider trading, money laundering or the embezzlement and misappropriation of corporate assets – continues to be prevalent within organisations, with the internet now the platform of choice for those...

SPECIAL REPORT

For global energy & natural resources companies, the last few years have been a time of considerable disruption due to a combination of policy, technological, market and customer change. Indeed, according to...

Bracewell & Giuliani LLP Recently announced acquisitions of electric and gas utilities reveal a trend toward seller-favourable terms in this sector. In addition to purchase prices that in many cases have been at a significant premium to market prices, the terms of recent...

Andrews Kurth LLP We have lived through a time period in which the project finance of renewable energy power plants became an important theme on the world energy and finance stage. That period is now fading away and renewable energy bankers will require new...

Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer LLP It has been a rough ride for the Canadian oil and gas sector since oil prices started their dramatic decline over a year ago. The oil patch in Canada looks very different today from what it looked like then. And we anticipate that within another six...

Minter Ellison The majority of Australia’s electricity generation and distribution systems were built last century, at a time when the delivery of energy services was still considered a core responsibility of government and prudent energy policy meant supporting large...

DEALfront

Emera Inc. and TECO Energy, Inc. have announced a definitive agreement which will see Emera acquire TECO in a transaction worth US$10.4bn. The deal, once concluded, will see TECCO Energy become a wholly owned subsidiary of Emera and...

Chinese firm Bohai leasing announced in September its agreement to acquire aircraft leasing firm Avolon Holdings Ltd, less than nine months after the Irish firm floated on the New York Stock Exchange. The deal, expected...

Struggling British supermarket chain Tesco announced in September that it had agreed to sell its South Korean unit to a group led by private equity firm MBK Partners in a deal worth $6.1bn. Under the terms of the deal, Tesco will sell its...

Private equity firm Sycamore Partners has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Belk, Inc., the family owned and operated fashion department store company. Under the terms of the merger agreement, New...

Hercules Offshore, Inc. has announced that it has filed a pre-packaged plan of reorganisation under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code. The plan filed for court approval will allow Hercules to continue its financial restructuring process and...

Storied Australian clothing brand Quiksilver Inc has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for its US units in September after losing around 80 percent of its market value in recent years. According to a statement announcing the...

PROFESSIONALinsight

Morgan Lewis ‘Spoofing’ is a form of market manipulation in which the trader layers the order book by submitting multiple orders on one side of an exchange’s order book at prices away from the touch in order to move the price but with no...

Simmons & Simmons LLP Global investment in financial technology (FinTech) businesses tripled last year from $4bn to just over $12.2bn. This figure is predicted to hit $46bn by 2020. These eye watering figures help explain why FinTech is currently the fastest growing of all fast...

Drew & Napier LLC Seven years on from the global financial crisis, many claims against banks arising from failed investments are still being heard in the Singapore Courts. One important issue that the Courts repeatedly face in such claims is the effect of...

SPOTlight

Norton Rose Fulbright In August 2014, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) announced amendments to the JSE Listings Requirements that include a fast track secondary listing process for companies that are already listed on accredited foreign exchanges. Fast track...

Pinsent Masons LLP The Middle East is a fast growing region with increasingly important markets. Operating in the region is a profitable opportunity, but with a relatively underdeveloped legal and regulatory framework to protect and govern business, that...

Frost Brown Todd LLC The US appears to have a somewhat schizophrenic approach to whistleblowing. While whistleblowers in the US have had a host of federal and state protections and incentives dating back to the 1863 False Claims Act, the fact is that whistleblower...

McCarthy Tétrault LLP Litigation is the bane of most, if not all individuals and businesses. Nobody wants to spend exorbitant amounts of money on legal fees to become entangled in courts over several years. Nevertheless, sometimes litigation is the only...

Lazareff Le Bars The wave of optimism on which Africa is being carried provides not only a great deal of good news from the continent, it also provides reasons and statistics which suggest that Africa could potentially reach, by around 2030, the same stage...